


x-es and o-ranges

by blueink3



Series: siblings or something [2]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Feels, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Post 6x08 The Presidential Suite, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-03
Updated: 2020-03-03
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:15:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueink3/pseuds/blueink3
Summary: “Alexis?”She stops in the doorway, startled, as if the sight of Patrick in the store he owns was not what she was expecting.“Oh, sorry, I thought - ” she pauses and shakes her head, “I thought David would be here.”Or, Patrick goes for a walk after his nine showers and Alexis wonders why the lights are on at RA after her dinner with Ted.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer & Alexis Rose, Patrick Brewer/David Rose
Series: siblings or something [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678900
Comments: 91
Kudos: 535





	x-es and o-ranges

He’s waging a war between letting annoyance get the better of him and having enough patience to not slam the brand new vegan nail polish bottles down on the counter where he’s unpacking them. At least he no longer matches the copper color he lines up next to the rest (helpfully named ‘Yank My Doodle’). Still, he’s frighteningly close to ‘I’m Getting a Tan-gerine’ and that’s enough to set him off again. 

_“Well, then if that’s all it took, should we just head back to Ray’s?”_

_“I don’t know. Do you think he’d have time?”_

_“No! I was being very, very sarcastic.”_

He’s not proud of his bitchy side, but sometimes, it can’t be helped. And sometimes, his fiance pokes at it until it erupts in an explosion of overreaction and passive aggression and then no one’s happy. 

_“So I guess my relatives will just have to imagine what the person I’m marrying looks like and how happy I am to be with him.”_

It had been a dick move, but one that was no less valid. He’d grabbed his coat, claiming the need for a walk, and left David and Stevie to fuss over the photographs, firmly ignoring the knowing look they shared as he slammed the door shut. Yes, he’s pissed and yes, they know it, but they’re adults so they’re all going to pretend that Patrick going for a walk at 8:36pm at night is a perfectly normal thing to do. 

Which brings him here. To his store. Unpacking a box of vegan nail polish in colors not even drunk David in his candy raver phase would ever dare to wear. 

But beneath the layers of anger and annoyance is a deep, deep hurt that he really doesn’t want to examine at the moment. It’ll just drudge up a whole host of things, of insecurities, he’s long since buried. Sort of. 

The bell rings out and he whirls around, unaware that he hadn’t actually locked the door behind him when he came in after hours - 

“Alexis?” 

She stops in the doorway, startled, as if the sight of Patrick in the store he owns was not what she was expecting. 

“Oh, sorry, I thought - ” she pauses and shakes her head, “I thought David would be here.” 

“No, he’s at the apartment,” he replies, frowning as he really looks at her: reserved and resigned and absolutely radiant. “We, uh, we had a disagreement.” 

“Is that why you’re looking golden?” She remains by the door, not even moving forward to boop him on the nose. 

“Thank you for not saying ‘orange.” 

She smiles, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. It’s then that he realizes, in addition to everything else, she mostly just looks _sad._ He’s gotten to know her expressions by now - her _I’m fine, but I’m going to make a stink because I can_ look; her _I’m definitely not fine, but I’m going to pretend I am because it’s what I do_ look; and finally, her _I’m so far from fine, I’m not sure what’s next_ look. 

This? This seems like the latter. 

“Alexis, are you okay?” He takes a step forward as she audibly swallows and glances around, mindlessly toying with a turmeric and cranberry face mask jar. 

“You know,” she finally says as she looks up, a tear falling on her cheek, “I don’t think I am.” 

He’s across the store and pulling her against his chest before she can even put the jar down, but her arms wind around his shoulders and she exhales wetly as she buries her face in his neck. 

They stand there for a moment, the two of them in the middle of the store, slowly swaying back and forth as she silently cries into his t-shirt. 

“Ted and I broke up,” she finally murmurs, voice muffled against his skin. 

“Fuck,” Patrick breathes, closing his eyes and holding her tighter. “I’m so sorry, Alexis.” 

He doesn’t ask how or why or when. He figures she doesn’t need to relive that at this moment. If she wants to talk, he’ll listen, but until that decision comes, he’s not going to press her for it. 

“Do you want me to call David?” He feels her shake her head against his shoulder and there’s a smile in her tone when she says: 

“You’ll do.” 

“Okay,” he whispers, cupping the back of her head. No, he doesn’t ask for details, but he does ask, “What do you need? Wine? Chocolate?”

She chuckles and pulls away, wiping at eyes whose makeup still looks flawless. “Both.”

“That we can do.” He presses a kiss to her cheek and turns to the back room before he can feel self-conscious about it. 

She’s already called him her brother. He knows that’s the place he holds in her life now and it’s a job he takes very seriously. But he also hopes he’s her friend, because he thinks that's what she needs right now. 

He grabs a bottle of red from the back as well as the dark chocolate with cherries and almonds that Mrs. Dietrich makes over in Elm Glen. When he returns to the floor, he finds Alexis playing with the jar of turmeric and cranberry face mask again. He opens the bottle of wine and finds a couple of plastic glasses left over from their last open mic night, handing her one as he carefully takes the jar from her slack grip and slides it into the purse she left on the center table. 

“Don’t tell David,” he says with a pathetic wink. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she manages to reply, voice tight, with a wink that’s just as bad. 

What a pair they make. 

He pulls out a chair for her and gestures that she sit, and she fans her dress around her like a princess as she carefully lowers herself down. He pulls another chair to place opposite her, but she tugs it snug against her own and pats the seat of it, giving him no choice to obey. He holds up his wine glass and she clinks hers against it, but the half-smiles they both give prove there’s not much worth cheersing to tonight. 

Their sips are overly loud in the quiet store, and Alexis thunks her head back against the center table, exhaling a heavy sigh. 

“What happened with you and David?”

“Oh we don’t need to get into that.”

“Please?” She turns to look at him then, and he recognizes the desperation in her tone. It’s the same one he used whenever his mother brought up his wedding to Rachel and he tried to change the subject. 

“It’s stupid, really,” he starts, but she cuts him off with a swat to his thigh. 

“It’s not stupid if it has you arranging ghastly shades of polish at 9pm on a Sunday."

He takes another sip and sucks it through his teeth, letting out a groan as he swallows and crosses his feet at the ankle. 

“We tried to get our engagement photos done today. I say, ‘try’ because I was apparently too pale - ”

“Your skin is perfectly alabaster,” she interrupts. “David _wishes_ he had that complexion.” 

Patrick lets out a scoff he couldn’t hold back if he tried. “Clearly,” he says, holding out his arm and highlighting the hue it most certainly usually isn’t. “And this is nine showers later.” 

She slides her delicate palm down his forearm and takes hold of his hand. “David’s an idiot.” 

“He’s not, he just - ” he bites his lip because complaining about David to his sister seems, well, not great. Then again, this is his sister-in-law. He’s slowly getting used to the concept of having a sibling. “He likes things a certain way and sometimes - sometimes I worry that I don’t fit in that particular mood board.” 

Alexis lets go of his hand, leans away, and levels him with a look. “Well now _you’re_ the idiot.” 

“Alexis, you and I both know he has a very specific aesthetic. It’s not a shock that I don’t match it. I’m not his normal type.” 

“Mkay, so his normal type? His normal type was an _asshole._ ”

“Alexis - ”

“No, you listen to me,” she says, gesturing with her wine glass grandly enough to send it sloshing. “You are kind. And you tease him. And you love him. You just - you _get_ him. And no one, not a single person in his life, has bothered to before.” She licks her lips and drops her gaze as if she can’t hold his anymore. “Patrick Brewer, you are the first good thing that’s ever happened to him,” she says, poking him with a manicured finger. “Actually, strike that. Losing our money was the first good thing that ever happened to him because it brought us _here_.” Her voice cracks on the final word and she bows her head, the fight seeping out of her as her shoulders begin to shake again. 

Because _here_ means many things for the Rose Family. _Here_ has been the setting for both beautiful beginnings and gut-wrenching endings. 

He sighs as he gets an arm around the back of her chair and gently tugs her to him. She drops her head on his shoulder, and he places a kiss in her hair, running his hand up and down her arm. 

They’ve come full circle now. 

“You know,” he starts, clearing his throat, “I’ve been told I’m a good listener. Just - if there’s something you want to say.” He sees her nod out of the corner of his eye and take a large, fortifying gulp of wine. Then another, draining the glass. 

He leans forward and silently grabs the bottle on the crate in front of them, filling her up while topping up his own, waiting for her words to come. He knows they will. 

“He got offered a job,” she finally says, tilting her head back and blinking rapidly towards the ceiling. 

“Oh?” 

“Three years. In the Galapagos.” 

“Oh.” 

“Yeah,” she says with finality, nodding as she plays with her necklace with her free hand. “We both decided that, though we love each other, this is for the best. Neither of us would be happy if we made the other sacrifice a dream job.” 

Patrick lifts his glass to his lips but doesn’t take a sip. He feels the weight of Alexis’ head back on his shoulder and he drops his on top of hers, lost in thought.

 _“We are not these people,”_ he had said earlier. 

Are they _these_ people, though? People who break up because it’s the right thing to do? Because they love the other person so much, they know it’s time to let them go? Patrick wonders if he even has that kind of strength. If he’s not so selfish. He and Rachel forced it to work until it literally couldn’t anymore. 

David does. David is the strongest person Patrick has ever met. 

Patrick doesn’t doubt that one bit. 

He wants to say _I’m sorry,_ or _I can’t imagine how hard this must be,_ but he knows, in a way. He’s been in this situation before. No matter how amicable, it doesn’t stop it from hurting deep down to the very recesses of your soul. Instead, what he finds himself saying is: 

“You’re incredible, you know that, right?” He feels more than hears her huff of breath through his t-shirt; it could be a scoff, or it could be a laugh. He gently nudges her with his shoulder and places another kiss on her head. “I mean it, Alexis.” He pulls away and forces her to meet his gaze. “I’m so lucky to have a sister like you.” 

Her eyes fill and she shakes her head, which only serves to spill the tears onto her cheeks. He brushes his thumb across her skin and pulls her into a hug once more. 

“And David and I will be here. For whatever you need.” 

“Promise?” she warbles into his neck, and he can hear the genuine concern in those tiny two syllables. 

“We’re not going anywhere.” But then he thinks of his own little panicked getaway and amends his statement. “At least not farther away than the store.” 

She pulls away once more and holds her glass out. This time he toasts it with more enthusiasm. 

“Even if what I need is wine, chocolate, and beauty products at a discount?” 

He snorts as he turns in his chair and pulls a tissue from the box on the table, handing it to her. “Beauty products at a discount’ means you’re actually _paying_ for things, which is more than what you do now, so yes. Always.” 

She laughs and he takes pride in the fact that he put that smile on her face. He made her eyes brighten just a shade lighter than they were when she walked in here tonight. She kicks her heeled feet up on the crate and he follows suit, letting her lean against him once more as he rests his arm around the back of her chair.

They sit in silence, because sometimes, words just aren't enough. 

Eventually, the bell over the door rings - he really _does_ need to get into the habit of locking it - but David stands there, looking an impressive combination of contrite, aggrieved, and concerned. 

“Um,” his gaze darts from them to the wine and back again, no doubt clocking his sister’s blotchy face. “What’s going on?” 

Alexis looks up at Patrick, a plea in her eyes. She can’t say this out loud again tonight. 

He clears his throat and meets David’s gaze, even as he runs a comforting hand up and down the outside of her arm. “Alexis and Ted broke up.” 

And Patrick watches the most beautiful thing happen then: David doesn’t speak, he barely even breathes - he just opens his arms and Alexis stands (squeezing Patrick’s thigh in thanks as she goes) and all but collapses into her brother’s embrace. And David’s arms wrap her safely up in a cocoon of cashmere and cologne, as they communicate the kind of silent conversation only siblings perfect. 

It's one Patrick is learning. 

David catches his eye over Alexis’ shoulder and offers him an expression that’s equal parts pained, apologetic, and hopeful. 

_Thank you,_ he mouths and Patrick nods. 

Then David holds out his hand, the one that Patrick placed four gold rings on with the whispered promise of forever, and turns it palm up. 

_I’m sorry._

Patrick swallows hard and nods again, taking hold of it firmly. _I love you._

David smiles. It’s relieved. _I love you, too._

He bends down and kisses David’s knuckles, content in the knowledge that if (God forbid) it came down to it, if he had to let David go to make him truly happy, he would. He’d beat his chest and strike his back and tear out his heart literally and metaphorically if it was what was best for the man standing in front of him.

And even if not, if he’s not sure he has the fortitude, well. 

Alexis can show him how. 

**Author's Note:**

> I cannot take credit for the nail polish names. Those come from the geniuses at OPI.


End file.
